


And They All Go Marching Down to the Ground to Get Out of the Rain

by likecrackingwater (1thetenfootlongscarf2)



Series: The Interviews [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:29:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1thetenfootlongscarf2/pseuds/likecrackingwater





	And They All Go Marching Down to the Ground to Get Out of the Rain

This one smelled like all the others. It was a modern building with white marble and tan walls. In the lobby a few televisions flickered. It was a roll of church programs - baseball and Latin classes and Bible study. Steve let his head rest against the wall of the confessional. It was dim in here. The wood was stained dark. He could hear, near by, the murmuring of the Sext. A moment passed then he heard the priest take a seat on the other side of the grille.

He took a steadying breath then knelt. It was easy, it was habit, to make the sign of the cross and say, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it has been eighteen months since my last confession."

They had brought him a military chaplain after freeing him from the ice. The Eucharist had tasted bitter. There was moment of stillness, then he continued, "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest my sins above every other evil, because they displease Thee, my God, Who, in Thy infinite wisdom, art so deserving of all my love and I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, never more to offend Thee and to amend my life. Amen."

The priest shifted on his seat. "And your sins?"

"And these are my sins. I have missed mass. I have not prayed on a long time. I lied to coworkers and refused to forgive them. I have held myself in contempt. I have been arrogant. I have resented my mother." He took a deep breath. "For these and all my sins I am truly sorry."

The Father gave him absolution and penance. "You must go to Mass for a month. Pray at least once a day, and have it be heartfelt. Treat your friends and coworkers with mercy. Go to your mother and pray with her."

"Thank you Father."

The nuns are gone, scattered to do good deeds. Steve left out a side entrance. There was still the lead weight of guilt. He had a meeting at one. He did not believe. 

* * *

 

Sarah Rogers watched Franklin D. Roosevelt swear into office in March and said, "He was the Governor of New York, Steven. He grew up here. He knows how we suffer. Hoover  _let_ us suffer. There's a difference."

Steve gamely ate potato gruel she cooked over stinking, dried weeds. Sometimes she would set aside a dollar and tear it into small strips. It burned clean. Then she would make him sit by the open windows. They would crane their necks to look up. Past the haze of light she would pick out some of the stars.

"You need to breathe in clean air." They couldn't afford to leave. Sometimes, very rarely, they took the train to Jersey City and looked out to Ellis Island. She would recount the moment she met Joseph Rogers at the crowded rail of the ferry. Legend said his older brother jumped off when he saw the skyline and swam to shore. Steve never met him. He was crippled on the docks and hung himself in his cramped room in the bachelor boarding. 

Her shifts were three on two off. The nights she had free were spent at National Women's Party. She tacked up a copy of the Equal Rights Amendment next to a clipping of the Pope and a flyer from the Democratic party. "This is what we want. I marched to vote and I marched to work. I'll be damned if I won't march all the way to my gave."

They visited the memorial once a year. Siobhan Breen would watch him when he was younger. She would warm a cup of watered down milk and they would sip it until Sarah collected him. Three times a year they went to Joseph's grave. It was empty. The first fight Steve remembers is when Jim Kennedy gets in a fit, shouting, "Your mamma didn't marry him! He ran off with a gyp!"

He split his knuckles on uneven teeth. Sarah scolded him. "You have bad lungs, a leanbh." 

After a while Steve didn't mind what others said. Sometimes he was glad his father had never gotten home. Henry Duggan's father came back in a bottle. He could be heard yelling up and down the street "Mary Agnes Duggan, I'll tan you, I swear to Christ". One summer Henry dropped a plate. His father threw him down the stairs. Mary Agnes brought him to Sara. She set his arm. He yowled. After it was wrapped he cried like a child. It was never entirely straight. 

Steve ran with a small crowd; Crowley and Murphy and Daly. Between one fight and the next Barnes slipped in. He was of a height to Thomas Murphy. They would play dice in alleys. A few memorable times they stole cigarettes from the mailman. The first time it went badly. Pat Crowley wheezed so loud they thought he was dying, and in a panic, abandoned him. It was all forgiven in a few days. 

A lot of things were legal in New York that weren't legal in Thomastown - the most prominent being a Catholic education. Sar would tell him the same thing every morning; her voice was stern but not unkind. "You are going to get a high school degree. You're going to work at a bank or for a shipping company. You've got a lot to do." She kept saying that even after they went all the way to the Bronx to see a doctor who pinched Steve's sides, looked into his eyes, and pulled Sarah to the edge of the room to whisper.

She was in a temper for days. Then she carefully taught him out to light asthma smokes. "These are medicine. I know Crowley will try and bum some off you. Don't let him." Sarah taught him how to smoke properly, with a slow deep draw to the bottom of his lungs. They would sit by the open window, wrapped in blankets and extra socks. "The doctor is wrong. He didn't know, but I do. I'm not just a nurse. I'm your mother. You're going to see the far side of thirty."

 His hand would cramp. Murpy had the best handwriting. They would sit on the stoop and write lines over and over until each curl was perfect. 

Siobhan left for Ireland a few years later. She gave them each a small book of Irish. They were handmade. James Barnes - Bucky - took it to heart. He would crow out the words when they warred with the Italians or the Jews. One evening, instead of chasing them off with a broom, Schlomo Katz  herded them into the butchers.

"Do you know what today is?"

The Jewish boys were suddenly cowed. Steve shifted uncomfortably. 

"It's Pesach! Why are none of you at home?"

No one was brave enough to answer. There was a rattle from upstairs. There was a cheer then Abe Choen was at the door. "The Rebbe's here."

Thomas made a move for the door.

"No you don't." Katz was not a large man. His voice was too big for him. "A Rebbe is a rare thing. You boys are going upstairs." As the Jewish boys passed he whispered harshly to them. When Steve's gang follow he just watched.

There was a massive table. The man at the head was red faced and a bit gaunt. Bucky seemed eager to catch a look at the food. There was just one plate for the table. All Steve could see was some green and a bone. Sean Daly shot him a pancaked look. "Do all us have to eat that?"

"I have no idea."

There was at least twenty people. They all wore wool. It made the room hot. The Rebbe spoke for a while. Then the cups were filled with wine. The table murmured and drank. Steve followed a step behind. Then it happened again. At some point food was pulled from somewhere - soups and meat and odd tack. Then back to the speaking and wine. 

They were released late at night. Before they left the table was pulled away and a group picture was taken. As they left the Rebbe shook their hands. The Jewish boys slipped back to their houses. Steve felt light by the wine, by the food, the strangeness of the night. Sarah was waiting for him. She must have seen them come up the street. It had taken longer then expected to get in the apartment because the doorknob suddenly seemed so complex.

"Where were you?"

"With the Jews." Steve tried to step forward. He stood, swaying. "It's pay-sach."

"I can see." She pulled out the tub. "Strip and get in."

Steve watched her pour in the water. "It's not warm."

"You reek Steven Grant Rogers. I will rub the drink right out of you. And tomorrow you're going to confession."

So he had.

Life rolled on. Sarah came home one night coughing. At the end of the week there was a wet rasp in her lungs. Siobhan's mother came by. Hours later she was bundled into a white panel van. She died upstate and was buried there. Steve didn't have money to move the body.

He and Bucky grew closer. Thomas cut ties to go to seminary. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Some of Steve's cartoons were even published in _The New Masses_. Bucky clipped them. Sean took a shine to Deirdre, who was going to be a seamstress. She had come over with her sisters. There was war across the sea and America was going to war. Sean was engaged a week before he got his letter. Bucky was drafted a month later. Steve was rejected over and over and over. He remember his mother, a few days after the Bronx and the way she said, "You're going to outlive us all."

* * *

 

Arlington was always receiving at least one body. Steve could hear the crack of gunfire. He only trembled inside. It had been months since the front, weeks since New York was turned into a glossy version of Lisieux. At night he would wake in cold sweat with aching teeth. He wondered if they would shatter in the night. 

He had been surprised by Romanov's surprise when he broke an alien's neck. There had only been hints of what the future thought of him. They thought he had gone out of the war with clean hands. That leave was bravery and not desperation. 

"You wouldn't be surprised, would you?"

The stone was pitted by time. Around it the other were taking on a grey sheen. Dum Dum was the smartest of all of them. On the Korean memorial he stared at the faces and could see a memory in every one of them. 

"I got a book the other day. Well, a friend got it for me. Do you remember to look we'd get after a low day? Some poor bastard captured it perfectly. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen."

He would look at it in the slanting light from the street lights. There was no need to smoke, and he didn't crave it, but he would smoke and drink in the pictures. Everything was painted in screams. Ignoring the ages suspended in ice he would  be twenty seven. 

Steve didn't feel on the far side of ninety. At this rate maybe the Bronx doctor was right after all.

"Is there anything I want to see on the far side of thirty?"

There was a procession winding down the path to the nearest lot. No one looked at him. The way they moved reminded him of that book, the staggering shades between fractured buildings. There had been a moment where he threw himself from the plane after Thor and Loki where he wished the chute would fail. Then, madly, he wondered if Thor still grieved for Baldor. 

Steve still mourned.

 


End file.
